MAPS of TRAUMA
Understanding Trauma, Metabolism & Becoming
A Live Eight-Week Advanced Trauma Course
with Benjamin Perkus, PhD
Creator of the Aroma Freedom Technique
Trauma is not only what happened to us. It is what the mind and body were unable to fully experience, organize, and metabolize—and the map of reality that formed around that interruption.
Dates: September 1 - October 20, 2026
Lectures: Tuesdays, 1-2 pm EST
Demonstrations: Tuesdays, 7-8:30 pm EST
Location: Live online via Zoom
In Maps of Trauma, I will present the latest evolution of the work that began with AFT (Aroma Freedom Technique) and TMRT (The Memory Resolution Technique) and has developed through 10 years of teaching AFT, clinical practice, and ongoing work with clients.
We will retain what has been most powerful about TMRT while exploring a larger question:
What is needed before memory processing, what may remain afterward, and how does healing become a different life?
TRAUMA AS INTERRUPTED METABOLISM
Psychological metabolism is the process through which experience becomes usable.
When experience exceeds our available capacity, we may survive it without fully digesting it. Its images, feelings, bodily responses, meanings, and expectations remain active in the present.
Unmetabolized experiences may lead to:
Advanced trauma work helps previously unusable experience become integrated—and helps us discover what the person needs in order to move forward.
A MORE COMPLETE MAP OF TRAUMA
TMRT taught us to identify and process the charged memory complex: the images, thoughts, feelings, bodily responses, and beliefs connected to a traumatic experience.
Maps of Trauma retains that essential work while widening the field of attention. In addition to tracking the memory itself, we will learn to recognize several other areas that can determine whether processing leads to lasting change:
You will also be introduced to the emerging Diamond architecture—a new lens for recognizing where trauma is operating now and what kind of intervention may be needed.
THE EIGHT-WEEK LECTURE SERIES
Trauma and the Metabolism of Experience
What does it mean to metabolize an experience, and how does experience remain active when that process is interrupted?
Safety, Protection, and Readiness
How do we recognize readiness and work with protection, overwhelm, collapse, dissociation, and parts?
Advanced TMRT
A deeper look at the memory complex and the image–thought–feeling–body–aroma interface.
What Remains After the Charge Is Gone?
How can old meanings and predictions continue organizing life after emotional processing?
Introducing the Diamond
A broader map for recognizing where trauma is operating now.
Trauma and the Knowing-Doing Gap
Why can someone sincerely know what they want to do and still be unable to do it? How do trauma, ADHD, permission, and executive function interact?
Trauma in Relationship
How do attachment, authority, obligation, conflict, and anticipated consequence shape change?
From Trauma to Becoming
How does healing open into action, relationship, creativity, and fuller participation in life?
EIGHT WEEKS OF LIVE DEMONSTRATIONS
The lectures provide the conceptual map. The demonstration series allows us to enter the territory.
Rather than presenting eight unrelated sessions, we plan to follow a small number of people through a series of live sessions over the eight weeks. This will allow participants to observe how trauma work develops over time—and how we determine what is needed at each stage.
We may begin with one concern and discover that safety or readiness requires attention before memory processing can occur. TMRT may resolve a charged memory while revealing a meaning, expectation, action pattern, or relational consequence that still needs to be addressed. A later session may show that the original problem has shifted—or that life has revealed the next part of the map.
Through these continuing demonstrations, you will be able to observe:
You will see not only what Dr. Perkus does, but how he thinks: what he notices, what questions he asks, how he chooses an intervention, when he changes direction, and how he distinguishes what has resolved from what still requires attention. Each session will be followed by teaching and discussion to help participants understand the clinical reasoning behind the work.
Holding the demonstrations separately gives the work room to unfold without shortening the teaching or forcing a session toward a premature conclusion.
The lectures teach the map. The demonstrations show how to navigate when the territory does not unfold as expected.
Demonstrations will be conducted only with informed participant consent. Replays will be made available when permitted by the consent and privacy agreements governing each session.
TWO WAYS TO PARTICIPATE
Price: $495
Complete Course
Price: $995
The lectures provide the map. The demonstrations reveal the territory.
WHO THIS COURSE IS FOR
Therapists, coaches, Aroma Freedom practitioners, and other helping professionals who want a more complete way to understand what may be needed before and after memory processing.
Thoughtful individuals who want to understand how trauma can shape perception, emotion, relationship, action, and possibility. Seekers who wish to process their own trauma more effectively.
Participation does not confer a clinical credential or authorize trauma treatment outside your existing training, licensure, or scope of practice. For those in the Aroma Freedom Certification course, this course will fulfill the Level 3 Certification requirement.
WHAT YOU WILL LEAVE WITH
Most importantly, you will leave with a more complete map—one that helps you recognize whether the next step is creating safety, processing a charged memory, updating an old meaning, or supporting a new way of moving forward.
COURSE DETAILS
Dates: September 1 - October 20, 2026
Lectures: Tuesdays, 1-2 pm EST
Demonstrations: Tuesdays, 7-8:30 pm EST
Location: Live online via Zoom
All lectures will be recorded. Demonstration recordings will be available when participant consent and privacy requirements permit.
If you previously registered for all four levels of Aroma Freedom certification and have not yet attended a live Level 3 training, Maps of Trauma is included as your current Level 3 training at no additional cost.
Enroll now in Four-Level Certification and you can attend, even if you have not yet done the earlier coursework. (Enroll Here)
The complete course—including the lecture and live demonstration series—is included with your active CEPP membership. Active CEPP members should email ben@aromafreedom.com to be added to the class roster.
CEPP is available to people who have previously completed or purchased the Aroma Freedom certification program. It provides continuing access to all current certification classes for as long as your membership remains active.
CEPP Membership: $750 per year
Click here to learn more or register for CEPP
No. Maps of Trauma is open to practitioners and thoughtful non-practitioners who want a deeper understanding of trauma, emotional healing, and the Aroma Freedom approach.
The course is educational and does not authorize anyone to provide trauma treatment outside their existing training, licensure, or professional scope.
No. Previous experience with Aroma Freedom or TMRT will make some of the technical material more familiar, but it is not required to participate in the course.
The Lecture Series includes all eight live lectures, replays, course materials, and visual maps.
The Complete Course includes everything in the Lecture Series plus eight separate live demonstration and application sessions, where you can observe the work unfolding with real people over time.
No. The demonstrations build upon the concepts presented in the lectures. You may register for the Lecture Series alone or choose the Complete Course with both lectures and demonstrations.
We plan to follow a small number of people through a series of sessions. This will allow you to see how we identify what needs attention, choose an intervention, and move through different phases of the work over time.
Because these are genuine sessions, we will not know beforehand exactly what will emerge. That uncertainty is part of their educational value: you will see how Dr. Perkus responds when the territory does not unfold according to a predetermined plan.
Demonstration replays will be made available when permitted by the consent and privacy agreements governing each session. Because participant privacy comes first, replay availability cannot be guaranteed for every demonstration.
All lectures will be recorded and available for replay. Demonstration replays will be provided whenever participant consent and privacy agreements allow.
Yes. Maps of Trauma serves as the current live Level 3 Advanced Trauma course for students enrolled in the complete four-level Aroma Freedom certification program.
If you previously purchased all four certification levels, this course is already included at no additional cost.
Yes. You may purchase Maps of Trauma as a standalone educational course without enrolling in the complete Aroma Freedom certification pathway.
Standalone participation does not by itself confer certification or authorize professional practice.
No. The complete Maps of Trauma course is included with your four-level enrollment. Use the student access link on this page rather than purchasing the course again. Email ben@aromafreedom.com to be added to the class roster.
Yes. Current CEPP members receive access to the complete course, including lectures and demonstration sessions, for as long as their membership remains active and in good standing.
CEPP is available to people who have previously purchased or completed the Aroma Freedom certification program. It provides continuing access to current certification classes and ongoing advanced learning while membership remains active.
If you are unsure whether you qualify, use the CEPP information link or contact us before enrolling.
No. Practice is optional. Appropriately trained participants may apply what they are learning within their existing level of training and professional scope. Others may participate through observation, reflection, and discussion.
THE NEXT EVOLUTION OF THE WORK
TMRT taught us how to identify and resolve the charged memory complex.
Maps of Trauma preserves that foundation while asking what allows experience to be fully metabolized, what remains when emotional charge has lifted, what helps insight become action, and how healing makes possible a life that could not previously be lived.
Dates: September 1 - October 20, 2026
Lectures: Tuesdays, 1-2 pm EST
Demonstrations: Tuesdays, 7-8:30 pm EST
Location: Live online via Zoom